Other Events

　In 2025, Japan celebrates 100 years of broadcasting, along with the 100th year since the start of the Shōwa era, and 80 years since the end of World War II. Since the first radio broadcasts began in 1925, Japanese people have experienced cultural life via a variety of media that have developed in various ways, including novels, newspapers, magazines, movies, radio, television, the Internet, and social media. These multiple media have created and nurtured numerous popular cultures, which, in turn, have been disseminated overseas thereby serving as a significant form of exchange between Japan and the rest of the world.

　The international symposium “Global Perspectives on Japanese Media and Popular Culture History: Critical Lessons from a Century of Broadcasting” will be held at Nichibunken in Kyoto from July 11th to 13th, 2025. Its purpose is to commemorate July 12th, 1925, when the Tokyo Broadcasting Station, as the predecessor of NHK, began regular radio broadcasting. It also aims to explore the potential for media history by considering and developing digital humanities approaches for interdisciplinary collaborative research. For this event, a total of 20 researchers – including 10 from and/or based in the Netherlands, which has a 400-year history of exchanges with Japan – will gather to discuss the (inter)national impact of Japanese media and popular culture over the past century. The symposium will facilitate the cooperation between several members of the Consortium for Global Japanese Studies, namely Seoul National University, Leiden University, and the University of Amsterdam. It will also be held as a model of cross-consortium international collaborative research, with the aim of expanding the scope of international Japanese studies globally.

　The keynote speech to open the symposium, “America in Japan 1825-2025,” will be delivered by Professor Shunya Yoshimi, who has played a central role in cultural studies in Japan by developing urban studies and media studies from a dramaturgical approach. Based on his recent book, “America in Japan: Harvard Lecture Transcripts” (Iwanami Shinsho, January 2025), Yoshimi will go back in time to 1825, when the shogunate issued the "Order to Drive Away Foreign Ships," one century before the beginning of broadcasting in Japan, and will reexamine Japan-US relations. Along with the audience, Yoshimi will reconsider the 100th anniversary of broadcasting in this long journey of 200 years. In the following panel discussion, three prominent researchers invited from Korea, the US, and the Netherlands will respond to Yoshimi’s lecture. The four speakers will delve into the essence of Japanese media and popular culture, which are inseparable from America, and discuss their challenges today and opportunities tomorrow.